


Ashes

by TheSnowyOwl



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Memory Related, Minor Character Death, Origin Story, Other, POV Female Character, POV First Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-17
Updated: 2019-08-17
Packaged: 2020-09-02 12:45:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 986
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20276128
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheSnowyOwl/pseuds/TheSnowyOwl
Summary: Note that, in my opinion, Ash is not the name Echo was born with but the name that Queen Nia gives her after the event in this oneshot takes place. I think that’s more fitting and far less cliche.





	Ashes

**Author's Note:**

> Note that, in my opinion, Ash is not the name Echo was born with but the name that Queen Nia gives her after the event in this oneshot takes place. I think that’s more fitting and far less cliche.

It occurred to me so suddenly, that I could no longer remember the name I was born with.

In a past time that was so distant from now, my mother had screamed and wept, her hands clawing at the furs and fabric as she agonised through her labour. I was to be her only child, a daughter who was small and rarely cried nor fussed the way other babies did.

How cruel it was, I thought, for my mother to birth a child who no longer knew her own name.

Indeed, as I watched the recording on the screen, relishing the sight of Monty and Harper cradling their newborn son in greeting, I realised just how sacred that moment must have been to my mother.

Now it seems that, whenever I ponder over matters of that distant past, I realise just how much I no longer remember at all.

I could vaguely recall days with my father, gathering supplies, tending to the animals and foraging for berries. He was a kind but firm man, with a strong set of values and a brave heart that seemed to be unfazed by danger. Perhaps he was as naive as I was, believing blindly in the virtues of humanity and the security of our land.

My mother, with her long braids and thin smile, was a lot more practical and sharp witted than my father, hardened to the world in ways she’d never discuss with me, and probably not with my father either. She taught me to sew and to sing, just as she taught me to hunt and to cook. I was just a small child, but somehow she seemed to know there was only so much time that we would have together, and so she wanted to give me my best chance.

I didn’t know much about the Azgeda until I was about seven.

It was a clan that no one would dare talk too much about, and when words were spoken they were sour, curdled milk on the tongue. The children used to whisper about the Queen of Ice Nation, a cold woman with a heart of ice and eyes that could turn you to stone.

Her warriors, I’d learn at the age of eight, were just as ruthless and cruel.

They were rugged beings who favoured thick furs, white paint and weapons that were anywhere from a crudely made shiv to a expertly crafted bow. They also did not discriminate in terms of who would be on the receiving end of their blows, from a wailing infant girl to a fragile elderly man, to them it didn’t matter - the weak and the interfering would be of no use to their Queen.

My father, unable to accept the reality put forth to him that brutal day, tried in vain to protect all of us. He refused to allow Azgeda to take our home, and for that he was executed. I was spared the sight of his death, as my mother ushered my sobbing and shaking form into the cellar. I remembered her words as her hand covered my mouth, pleading whispers for me to be silent so that we would not be heard.

But in the end, they found us anyway, hiding huddled behind the door of the cellar. Although the door was locked, they did not give up nor break it down themselves. Instead, their lust for blood turned into the sick desire for a different kind of sadistic gratification.

We heard their footsteps rolling away like thunder receding into the distant clouds, but my mother knew better than to feel relief.

_What’s the best way to get rats out of their hole? _One had boomed from outside, his voice laced with gruesome excitement as the others jeered and began to fuss.

We were given the answer, my mother and I, as thick smoke began to seep through from underneath the door. It climbed up the walls, shrouding us in its deadly fog, and both of us shared the rush of fear, heartbreak and adrenaline as the reality of our final moments together dawned upon us.

My mother grabbed onto me with an intensity I’d never known, and pulled me with all her might up the steps and through the wreckage of our beloved home.

However, the flames were strong as her might. 

When I burst out into the fresh air, gulping the oxygen into my lungs as I ran and fell to my knees, I realised we had been separated in the haze of the inferno within our house.

I wish I couldn’t remember the rest. I wish the fogs of the smoke and the heat of the flames had incinerated all remnants of those final moments, but that was a kindness I was never entitled to.

When I saw her for the last time, the courageous and beautiful woman who had raised me with strength and grace, she was running towards me. Her whole body was ablaze, the fire consuming her flesh, riddling her bones with its destruction, burning away her thin smile and her long hair, ripping her screams from her throat.

And I could do nothing, as my body wracked with the aftermath of inhaling so much smoke, and as my eyes streamed unrelentingly with hot tears.

I watched her as she died. I heard her as she died. I smelled her as she died. I felt the heat radiating from her as her final breath extinguished the life from her.

Though I wanted so desperately to crawl closer, to hold her and to piece her back together, I knew I couldn't.

For what felt like an eternity I watched everything burn and decay, but at some point they came back. Surprised by my survival, they decided that I was valuable after all and took me away from the fire and blood - leaving behind the **ashes** of all I’d ever loved.


End file.
